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rather a painless visit to the dentist. both financially and painwise. she recemented the crown, gave me a checkup and a scaling, and it came to £20.60 which is the stage 1 of the scale of fees charged by the nhs. that is rather less than i expected thinking she will charge me for stage 1 and 2 work.nowadays they dont polish the teeth anymore after scaling. and she did not suggest taking bitewing xrays… it might bung up the cost to stage 2, so perhaps just as well she did not take xrays.

since i wont want any fillings even if the xrays shows caries, the xrays wont serve any purpose anyway. in fact, i know there is a potential caries in my upper right first molar… but being an ex dentist, i can assess whether fillings can wait. sometimes caries take a long time to progress… esp if i dont have a sweet tooth, so i can afford to wait and watch it.

so now i shall have to make sure i put no pressure on that crown. can be a bit difficult, but it means i must resist the temptation to bite anything with my upper front teeth. so will have to chop food small now, instead of tearing it off with the teeth. ah well, if it let me use that crown for another 4yrs i shall be quite satisfied. i think one day it will need to be remade. i asked how much a private crown would cost, she said about £600, and this is with a crown and bridge specialist. i daresay it will be more.

i had an interesting conversation with the dentist. she said she likes doing root treatments, and in fact is doing a diploma in it. strange isn’t it because it is because of the root treatment , for molars and premolars and their difficulty as i got older that made me give up dentistry. she did not like doing post crowns, saying it was so difficult to get a good impression of the root, so maybe that explains why the previous dentist did not do a laboratory made post. yet, if she do lots of root treatments a lot of teeth will need post crowns afterwards, or in the future. dead teeth are brittle and will fracture over time, or discolour , both good reasons to have a post crown made.

maybe the dental graduates nowadays dont have much experience in getting good impressions of the root… it is a bit of skill to do it. or post crowns made by the laboratory are so expensive now that it is not cost effective to do it on the nhs. that might be the real reason. even in my day as a nhs dentist, it was not very profitable to do it, but i did it anyway, as i was trained to do it and it is the best way… that crown will last a lifetime and wont fall off unless it was hit with a strong force.

its another pleasant day today, not as hot as before which makes it better. yesterday i was looking at the weather in subang,malaysia ; near my family home, and it was exactly like what we get in london that day, only exception was the humidity… 47% here compared to 80% in malaysia. that might explain why it is so uncomfortable in malaysia but not in london even though the high of about 31C is the same. and i noticed it was just as humid in the night in malaysia. it doesnot abate even at night. in fact it seems to get higher, ie more humid at night and early morning.

isn’t it funny, i just made myself a hot cup of coffee after my meal of hot noodle soup… in this heat, and i still want these hot foods. and me sweating away… haha. though i have noticed that sweating can cool me down. so there is method in the madness. haha.

added. 4.10pm 28.5C i just got back from shopping in tesco. it is the one near kennington where i have to take two buses to get there, but both times the two buses came so close to each other, i did not have to wait.

even returning, the bus arrived just as i reached the bus stop, so brilliant timing.

anyway i went there to buy coffee and milkpowder. it is sure quick to finish off that 100mg bottle of coffee. it is 79p, gone so much up from 50p which it was for so long. i have got into the habit of having coffee… fortunately, this basic brand is still cheaper than the branded coffee. a lot cheaper actually … compare to those costing £4. if other people finish off a 100mg bottle in 3 weeks like me, just think how much more they will spend if they buy those branded coffees. though if u compare it to a paid cup of coffee from the coffee shops which cost £2.70 a cup, i guess it is very cheap. it is all relative isn’t it?

of course u might argue what about the taste. surely a weak instant coffee must taste terrible. perhaps u will be right, but then i find ordinary coffee as sold in the coffee shops not much better really. blame it on my bad taste buds which cannot seem to differentiate good coffee from bad.

in fact, i dont know what bad coffee taste of, as it all taste the same to me just different bitterness…and i dont even add suger. i bet if u add suger it will taste even more the same… as i paid up and left i saw a woman carrying in her shopping basket a pack of frozen cornetto icecream and remembered that tesco is selling them for £1 for 4. but i was allready leaving the store so did not feel like going back… i guess better not buy any, as i should not be eating any sugery stuff.

and coming back i found that just making ice by putting water in the ice box is so easy and putting it in tap water makes the water so cool and quite delicious actually without adding sugery syrup. in the past i used to think i have to add suger syrup to the drink. it is a habit right? been doing it since i was a kid, so that it never occurred to me that u can drink tap water with ice in it, and it would be quite nice to drink.

it is so cheap to do, to make ice i mean, that sometimes i wonder why simon buys ice costing £1. and then putting them inside the freezer so that it occupies so much space.

oh, there is no fear of radiation, in that it is in the mouth region and not near the gonads. also during my day, we always put a lead apron on the patients abdomen. with these new digital machines, i dont think it is xrays they shoot anymore. but i might be mistaken as i left dentistry long before these new xray machines came in.
it is always a difficult decision when to go in and treat caries. in the past, we do it as soon as we see evidence of it hitting the dentine, rather than just confined to the enamel… and i think it might still be the criteria. it is just me that dont want to dig a bigger hole in the tooth just to get rid of these caries. i prefer not to eat sweet things at all, or very rarely. i know eventually it will require filling as once it hits the dentine it tends to grow and spread. but i have a unsubstantiated theory that with old age, it spreads less than when the tooth is young. i find as i grow older, so many things which i would treat if i were younger i tend to wait and see and just monitor it.

sounds like an orthopantomogram, it takes the whole upper and lower jaw and show the wisdom teeth. but i cannot imagine why they should want to see your wisdom teeth…haha. i think your xray is not to do with the jaws, but the spinal bones maybe as i understand you have lots of problem with those.

sometimes it can be cleared by brushing the top of it, the half buried teeth can trap food so if u make a habit of brushing the top of the half buried tooth and try to clear food from under the gum that lies over the tooth, just to flush that area and with vigorous rinsing, even bathe that area by holding water inside the mouth over that area if looks swollen and tender as hot as u can stand without burning yourself, the heat can drain any abscess that forms there…and brush and rinse it often when the abscess is cleared. it sometimes makes these infections occur less often.